Magic Carp Pet? Optical Illusion Rug Shows Swimming Fish

By dornob

Moiré is at once a traditional French word for a wavy-patterned textile and a (related) modern word for a kind of interference pattern in physics that occurs when overlapping two elements – here, in black and white, both meanings work together.

The key is the coffee table, which turns a static, somewhat-abstracted school of fish and makes them swim when the viewer moves around it – its surface frames the carp like a tank would to complete the optical illusion.

And it’s not just a concept design – there is an actual prototype, though mass production, well, that might take some time yet (though hopefully a Red Dot Design award will give it a little push upstream).

“Mythologically, the carp symbolizes bravery and fortune.” And if you hadn’t guessed … Clarke Hopkins Clarke has this to say of the fanciful Carp Pet title: “Linguistically, the “carp” becomes a humorous extraction of the “carpet” that reveals this intriguing little conversational piece on the floor.”